n0thing to Report: Going Forward from EMS One

Hey all, Jordan here! As the dust settles from the EMS One $250k tournament in Poland, we have now reached a new plateau in terms of daily CS:GO players. This is great for all of us, because we are slowly being able to show our sponsors not only how many people play, but how many watch as well. Regardless of what the current numbers show, Counter Strike is a name that has been entrenched in many gamer’s heads for years, even if they don’t have it installed on their PC. That being said, it’s nice when we can attract gamers from the now flashy LoL and DotA2 scenes. Those games now boast the largest prize pots gaming events have ever seen, so to be able to make a little splash with our $250,000 prize pot definitely helps create and stir excitement.

On the coL front, since EMS One we have undergone some roster changes. Braxton “swag” Pierce decided to leave the team for a few personal reasons and joined up with iBuyPower in place of Eric “adreN” Hoag. At the same time, Todd “anger” Williams saw his departure from iBP and joined up with us! We made this move because we felt Todd provided the best culmination of experience and skill in the current player pool, and even though none of us have played with him, we already see the potential and hope everything can work out as planned.

This past week I’ve been on spring break, so most of my life has been dedicated to making up for matches we missed, streaming, and even some occasional golfing! We are doing well in CEVO, but in ESEA we are currently sitting at a 2-4 record after some unfortunate losses (including 1 to iBuyPower). We actually used Ryan “fREAKAZOID” Abadir for the first match of the season, since we did not have permission to use anger yet. I think most of my team has been in this situation at least a few times so we know we just need to grind out the season and make playoffs and everything resets from there, even though having a 1st seed bye is nice.

As far as streaming goes, I’ve been having a really good time just interacting with and entertaining my viewers. The theme of my stream seems to change depending on my mood, but I feel I’ve been able to find a balance between Q&A/Instructional streams as well as the more popular rapping/dancing ones, haha. I think it’s awesome that I can get together with hundreds (and thousands) of gamers and find ways to enjoy gaming together casually or seriously. I actually look forward to trying some other games on stream and seeing how people react to me playing single player games or maybe even some RTS or MMO titles. If you haven’t watched my stream, come hang at www.twitch.tv/n0thingTV and follow me on Twitter – @jgilbertoh – for updates!

In terms of competition, my team is focusing on online competition at the moment while we try to gain some experience with “anger” as a player. With every lineup change that occurs at a pro level, it’s important that you practice with them and discuss little nuances such as spot preferences and player habits. Even if players look excellent at one thing from a spectator’s perspective, a lot of times the way they carry out the task is different through our point of view. In this case, we have to exchange swag, who was a lurker style player who could fill gaps based on his own tuition, versus anger who is much more meticulous and can be very impactful based on having more pre-determined knowledge of our strats. Both players have strengths and weaknesses, and in this case we need to help Todd find his comfort zone between lurking but also trading kills with me and Semphis on the entry side of things.

Our next event will be a somewhat small event, but large on the local scale. It’s called the SoCal Revival LAN and it’s the 2nd event they have hosted in effort to bring some life back into the local scene in California. This has really benefited the local community because it gives groups of kids a reason to stick together with a team and also to maintain good relationships. One problem in the gaming world is when people disregard their teammates because they don’t really have a commitment to them, and feel like they can leave the team at any moment. It’s fun to see teams develop and stick together and grow. A great example of this would be my friend’s team “Team To Beat”. Led by Mark “scoutz” Herrero, TTB stuck together for more than 4 years and went from an open team to an invite team in CS 1.6. I believe this is what it takes to really make something of your gaming career, instead of constantly leaving a team and joining a better one (which isn’t that fun to do).

That’s all for this time, so keep an out for me and the rest of compLexity at the upcoming SoCalRevival LAN on May 3rd/4th, online during the ESEA Season 15, and the CEVO Online division as well.